


'Verse War Z Day 1: Unspeakable

by Lyrstzha



Series: 'Verse War Z Project [1]
Category: Firefly
Genre: 'verse war z project, Angst, Apocalypse, Dark, Established Relationship, Flash Fic, M/M, Slash, Zombies, potential Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-04
Updated: 2011-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-20 03:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plague starts in the Core, but all too soon the dead are rising out on the Rim, and there's no part of the black left safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Verse War Z Day 1: Unspeakable

**Author's Note:**

> The established Mal/Simon relationship and the name of a certain space station are dedicated to a very deserving someone who knows who she is.

It started simply enough. At first it was just whispers on the Cortex, maybe a tale swapped with other spacers when they were in port---and Mal would always scoff and say such tales were taller than autumn cornstalks anyhow, even if Jayne did stay a mite twitchy for days after.

But then the whispers got louder, and the tales came thicker. After a few weeks, it wasn’t just hearsay anymore; there were grim images on the Cortex, and the black out on the Border got mighty full of Alliance cruisers laden with refugees all of a sudden. It got so every little two-bit moon they stopped at was crowded with people fleeing the inner worlds. And that was a kicker, too, because if it’d started out on the Rim, Mal would’ve been more suspicious, thought maybe the Alliance was up to no good again. Hell, maybe they _had_ been; maybe something they’d been testing had escaped.

“I should be there,” Simon said softly soon after the images went live. He was watching the Cortex feed obsessively these days, fretting himself to no good Mal could see. “I’m a _doctor_ ,” he added, like Mal didn’t know. “I’m needed there.”

Mal wrapped one hand around the tightly clenched muscle of Simon’s shoulder, grounding, comforting, and restraining all at once. “Any doc worth his salt wants to heal people as need it, but you gotta remember there’s no short of ‘em there already. Way things’re goin', we’ll be needin’ you right here more’n they do back there.” _Stay with me_ , his fingers said into Simon’s flesh, kneading silently.

Simon heaved in a deep breath and leaned a little into Mal’s touch. His head dropped to the side until he could rub his cheek lightly against the back of Mal’s wrist. He didn’t exactly say he’d stay, but then Mal didn’t have to answer that he’d hog-tie him if he tried to go back to that mess either, so Mal figured they were maybe getting the hang of how to talk to each other properly at last.

Neither one of them mentioned Simon and River’s parents, not even a few days later when the feed from Osiris went dark. That night in their bunk, Mal wrapped around Simon as tightly as he could, like his body was armor made of flesh and bone, like he could be a wall against the world. Neither of them slept, and they spoke only with their skin that night.

As Simon picked at his cold breakfast next to Mal the following morning, River cocked her head at him.

“They wouldn’t have come for us,” she told Simon flatly. “Fair’s fair. For every inaction, there is an equal and opposite inaction.” Her eyes were hard as stones, and Mal thought that she’d never looked less like the girl she might have been, not even when she’d been covered in Reaver blood and wielding death in each hand.

Simon shivered, looked away, and said nothing, but he gripped Mal’s knee under the table so tightly that there was a crown of bruises ringing it after.

It was maybe a couple of weeks after that when they first ran afoul of the plague themselves. They’d come to Paquin, hauling bales of brightly colored cloth for a tailor there. Not an especially shiny job, but it had done in a pinch. What with all the trouble, it was hard to get work that didn’t involve carrying passengers, and Mal didn’t much like stories he’d been hearing of ships that took in folks what turned out to be infected. Better not to take the chance with his own crew to look after.

But once they’d come close enough to wave dockside for landing instructions, there’d been nothing but static. The whole crew gathered around River in the pilot’s seat, and maybe they stood a little closer together than they otherwise might.

“Don’t like it, Sir. Too quiet out there,” Zoë warned.

“Ain’t enough fuel to take us much farther, not even if I shut down anythin’ we don’t really need,” Kaylee insisted. “Be floatin' dead inside two days, no matter how I rig her.”

“Two days’ll get us somewhere that ain’t _here_ ,” Jayne snapped. “No ruttin’ _way_ I’m goin’ down there to get gorram et up. I say we take our chances on findin’ fuel someplace else.”

“There must be someone left,” Inara murmured softly, eyes locked on the screen. “A whole planet can’t just be gone like that. Not so _quickly_.”

Mal turned away from the view of Paquin turning slowly below them, the bloom of fires dancing here and there across her face. “If there’s some as ain’t sick, there’s more as are. We watch our burn, we might could make it to Dana Station. Oughta be able to find fuel cells there,” he said firmly.

“There must still be survivors down there,” Simon argued immediately. “Are you suggesting we just leave them? Because you must know I can’t do that.”

“Four hospitals on Paquin, an’ you think there’s somethin’ you could do that they couldn’t? Somethin’ _besides_ get your ownself infected an’ get us _all_ dead as those poor bastards?” He looked Simon right in the eye and hardened his heart to pull out the biggest gun he could think of. “ _That_ how you take care'a your little sis?”

Simon stiffened, and all the blood drained from his face like Mal had stabbed him in the gut, which maybe he sort of had. The fierce and wounded look in his eyes did not bode well to Mal’s way of thinking. The doctor’s jaw snapped shut, and he turned sharply on his heel to stomp off the bridge. Mal moved to go after him, but River’s slim fingers snagged his coat before he got more than half a step.

“Let me,” she insisted. “He’ll forgive _me_ , after.”

Maybe it was a cowardly thing to do, but he let her. Mal took over the piloting and asked no questions about where she disappeared to and why Simon didn’t show for dinner. He wasn’t a bit surprised to find Simon in their bunk later, sleeping off what must have been a hell of a lot of tranquilizers until they were well clear of Paquin.

They got off Dana Station with what little fuel they could afford; prices were more than triple what they ought to be, and the station guards were riding herd on the stores with a strict shoot-first policy. As for new food supplies, nobody would part with those for love or money---though between Inara and Mal, they were desperate enough to try both.

After that, Mal had River set course for Whitefall. There hadn’t been any news of infection out there yet, and he was hoping to pick up some supplies safely there, even if he had to take another bullet to do it.

But it was worse than Paquin; it wasn’t quiet yet. A hundred voices screamed out in the night for someone, _anyone_.

“Can’t just listen to this, Sir. There’s gotta be somethin’ we can do here,” Zoë insisted. “I know you don’t wanna get our people hurt, but what good is livin’ if you let the world up an' die around you?”

“I’m going down there this time,” Simon agreed, his voice steady and final as worlds turning. “If I have to take a shuttle and go alone, I’m going.” He did not say, _I need to do this, and if you love me, you won’t try to stop me_ , but Mal could hear it anyway.

“All right,” Mal sighed. “All right. Those who wanna stay can wait here. We’ll take a shuttle down, get some supplies, see if we can help folks down there get themselves holed up proper, at least.”

“I ain’t goin’,” Jayne declared immediately.

“You are,” River told him. “You can pretend you aren’t, but you are. Even you don’t want to be the last one left, all alone.”

“I don’t give a good gorram what you think, little girl! I _ain’t_ ,” Jayne hissed at her. He stormed off the bridge, his boots clanging loudly.

River watched him go with a slide of her gaze. “He will,” she said calmly. “We all will.”

Inara nodded. “I suppose I’ll just get my bow and tie back my hair, then,” she said.

“Hey now,” Mal objected. “There ain’t no call to go riskin’ everybody, an’ I won’t do it.”

But there was no stopping them, not really. Not a damn one of them paid his objections any mind.

And that was how they came to be shut up in a root cellar, down to a handful of bullets and two of Jayne’s grenades, waiting for dawn with nothing but the rasping of seven bodies breathing to count the creeping minutes.

“I _knew_ I shouldn’t’a come,” Janye muttered under his breath for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“We are where we are, Jayne,” Zoë finally snapped at him. “Best let that be an’ move on.”

“Move on to _what_?” Jayne shot back. “Far as I can see, we ain’t movin’ no place fast. An’ am I the only one thinkin’ we gotta put a bullet in my head ‘fore I turn?” He held up his arm, the bite on his wrist so red now that it showed bright and angry even in the faint light Mal had left shining to keep their sanity. “Don’t wanna be one’a them things, Zoë. Be worse’n dyin’. You promise me you won’t let it happen.”

“It comes to that, I won’t,” Zoë promised. “But don’t you be chasin’ after that bullet just yet. Might be we can find a cure, once the captain gets us outta this.”

Jayne snorted faintly. “ _If_ we get outta this, you mean to say.”

“We will,” Kaylee reassured Jayne quickly, so painfully earnest in her certainty that it made Mal’s insides twist all out of place. “We will, ‘cause the Captain’s gonna think of somethin’. It’s gonna be okay, you’ll see. Or River’ll get us out! You remember how she took down all them Reavers.”

“Dozens are not thousands,” River muttered from where she was huddled in on herself in the shadowy corner. “Too many vectors to calculate effectively.”

“I’m thinkin’ on it,” Mal said immediately, before River’s quiet words could sink in deeper and shake folks up even more. “Almost got us a solid plan. Just need to wait for light, is all.”

Simon leaned closer, his shoulder pressing into Mal’s, carefully not on the right side where he’d get in the way of Mal’s gunhand. “Just need the light,” he echoed softly, his eyes gleaming knowingly in the dimness. The fingers of his right hand curled over Mal’s left, and he brought it up to press his lips against it quickly. He didn’t say he knew there wasn’t any plan, but Mal understood him fine anyway.

 _Just gotta think of somethin' before daybreak_ , Mal told himself, squeezing Simon’s hand. _Just gotta, is all. Nothin’ else bears thinkin’ on._


End file.
